Rephaim Bloodlines

My upcoming PUF (paranormal urban fantasy, lol) set and short stories have a lot of deep backstory and world building, created before I began writing, and a lot of those details may never really come out in the books. They help me as the writer, but might not be immediately helpful for the story itself. Still, it’s good information, and I figured I’d share some of it with you ;)

Bible Verse-inspired, but not “Christian Fic”

First, the stories are inspired by several bible verses that I thought were really interesting, as a creative writer. I looked into those verses and found so many conflicting takes on them, I just knew it was open enough to let me flex my creative muscles and add surprises and twists. I’m not writing Christian fiction, but I try not to be intentionally offensive about other people’s deeply held beliefs, whatever they may be. So some of the standard assumptions hold true, while others are right out the window, but nothing is intentionally offensive.

It’s merely fiction… not theology.

The Players

Celestials

The Celestials include both angels and demons. The demons are fallen angels led by Lucifer, an arch-angel as powerful as Michael, who leads Heaven’s hosts. Most angels and demons dwell in heaven and hell, serving at Michael and Lucifer’s command and keeping the Darkness at bay. All Celestials know many True Names, which allow them to perform what is essentially magic, but they are limited to using only those powers for which they know the true name.

Angels

Sometimes stationed on Earth, angels are the Watchers, also known as the Grigori. Their job is mainly to keep the demons from mucking up the universe. They’d love to reduce humanity to a level the planet can sustain, about 500 million, and knock some knowledge out of them. This goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel, when the Fallen taught them too much. Don’t forget the Great Flood, when Michael wanted to get rid of the Childer, angel/human offspring. It didn’t work as well as they’d have liked.

Demons

Also often stationed on Earth. Known as the Fallen, or the Nephilim (a curious twist on the normal interpretation of the Bible, but one which is potentially possible), they have their own agenda. Their agenda isn’t necessarily to take over Heaven or spit in God’s eye, although that would be great, too.

Some say the enmity between the two sides boils down to a disagreement on one of God’s edicts, but if so, humanity lost that knowledge with the loss of the Anasazi Bible.

Childer

The original offspring of angels and humans, this is another re-interpretation of bible verses (but not so far-fetched). Basically, the Childer had Celestial souls, and so were immortal, but they had Earthly bodies that could conceivably be slain.

When they died, being welcome in neither Heaven nor Hell (because they’re neither Celestial nor mortal), they went to Purgatory, a part of Gehenna. They were wiped out in the Great Flood, just as the Bible says. Their own children, the Rephaim, survived somehow.

Rephaim

These are 40 bloodlines that stretch back along matrilineal lines (mother to daughter) all the way to the Childer, who were their primogenitors. Rephaim have mortal bodies and souls, but they also carry a fragment of angelic power in their blood called shard.

As mortals, they can’t speak Enochian (the Celestial language) with power, but they can tap into their shard to use them. The strength of their bloodline limits how many each can hold in use at any one time. Glyphs and sigils of a power appear on their flesh, glowing when the use a power they have learned. Between their shard and a glyph, they can use many of the Celestial powers.

Rephaim had a schism during the Renaissance and have fought a sort of cold war ever since.

The Circle, or Kabbal, has existed since Abrahamic times. They seek control over the lesser mortals and view themselves as being above mundane humans.

The Order broke away from the Circle, and now has members from every bloodline. They seek to keep the balance between angels and demons on Earth so neither can win, because the Order wants to remain free of total domination by a Celestial victor. For the same reason, they oppose the Circle’s plots to control humanity.

Others

There are a few other known supernatural races, and many more are rumored. Most Rephaim believe these are survivors from the age of the Leviathans, which God smote because they threatened his fledgling Human race. The survivors have been operating from the shadows ever since.

Anasazi Bible

This mythical book may or may not have ever really existed. Allegedly, it is the only known recording of God’s own True Name, which theoretically could allow even a mortal to control (or destroy) God. Many other True Names are supposedly in it as well, including Gabriel’s and Lucifer’s, as well as all the Leviathans. It has firsthand accounts of the Great Flood, along with many other prehistory accounts.

If the book ever did actually exist, legends say it came to the New World in the earliest days of European contact along with members of one prominent Order bloodline. Although the Anasazi Bible is rumored to have disappeared shortly after, the New World has been a raging battleground between the Order and the Circle ever since.

Here in America, the “cold war” between them isn’t nearly as cold as it is in the rest of the world…

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